2008-06-27

Frustrating

OK, custom type is cool. But the NYT’s presentation of the alternative – widely available commercial type – is incredibly irritating. There are two headlines to the article, one the real version and one in the web page title:

Down With Helvetica: Design Your Own Font

When Comic Sans Isn’t Enough

<rant>First, Helvetica is beautiful. Up with Helvetica, damnit! Yes, it is probably overused, but it is more than iconic – it’s the type foundation of innumerable icons, from the NYC Subway (and Chicago CTA, tracked tight and often lovingly kerned) to Panasonic, 3M, and even Microsoft.

Second, shouldn’t that be “Down with Times New Roman” (the default for the millions of Word users out there, and ugly whenever it’s larger than the 8- or 10-point size it was designed for) or “Down with Fucking Arial,” Microsoft’s incredibly skeezy (and ugly!) ploy to avoid licensing the real thing?